Rocky Mount Police Chief Robert Hassell identified the two adults during a live news conference on ABC11 during Eyewitness News at Noon. He said they were 24-year-old Destiny Wiggins and 28-year-old Devone Brown.
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The two children found in the car were described as "toddler age." They remain at the hospital with other family members, but Hassell said the "children are doing well."
This whole case started around 6 a.m. Thursday when workers started arriving at Barnhill Construction at 1451 Construction Drive. At least one of the workers noticed a car in the employee parking lot that wasn't supposed to be there. Inside that car, the employee(s) noticed two people with gunshot wounds.
When police arrived they confirmed that the two people, later identified as Wiggins and Brown, had been shot to death. First responders also found the children and rushed them to UNC Nash Healthcare for treatment due to being exposed to cold weather.
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"Please keep the family members in your prayers," Hassell said. "Of course with any kind of situation like this, two members of our community have lost their lives,."
Edgecombe County resident Evangeline Bullock came to the area Thursday morning with a prayer for the families involved.
"Heartbreaking," Bullock said. "Heartbreaking, even for an adult. But to think that these babies, I hope that they were asleep and they don't know what happened. I would hate for them to have to grow up knowing and hearing the sound of their parents being murdered, so I just hope that they were just asleep and slept through it."
The sheriff confirmed that the case was being investigated as a homicide but declined to comment on whether this was a murder-suicide or whether the victims and children are related.
"It's still too soon to tell," Hassell said. "It's an unfolding investigation, it's still active at this time."
A friend of Brown's remembered him as "like a brother, and uncle to my kids," and added it was never a dull moment around him and he knew how to "keep a smile on our face."